Glassbox, a Toronto-based fintech startup, announced that it has raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding to reimagine how finance teams work with spreadsheets in the age of AI. The round was led by FinTech Collective (New York) and StandUp Ventures (Toronto), with participation from Watertower Ventures (Los Angeles). The fresh capital will be used to expand Glassbox’s team and bring its AI-compatible financial analysis platform to market.
Glassbox, a Toronto-based fintech startup, announced that it has raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding to reimagine how finance teams work with spreadsheets in the age of AI.
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For decades, corporate finance workflows have relied on clunky spreadsheets, long hours, and error-prone manual processes. While other industries have begun embracing real-time collaboration tools and AI-powered assistants, finance teams have been left with little more than bigger, more complex Excel files. Glassbox aims to change that.
“Agentic workflows are generating a lot of buzz, but corporate finance remains hindered by manual processes and fragmented, context-poor data trapped in spreadsheets, limiting their potential,” said Allison Harris, Glassbox’s CEO and co-founder. “Our goal is to build smarter, more transparent tools that will truly enable finance professionals to responsibly leverage AI at scale.”
Glassbox’s solution is centered around a new framework it calls FinScript. Rather than building financial models and analysis with traditional spreadsheet formulas, users can input plain text instructions that align with large language models’ (LLMs) capabilities for processing written information. This approach adds context and structure to data and enables faster, more auditable analysis while maintaining compatibility with existing Excel-based processes.
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“FinScript bridges the gap between human expertise and LLMs’ power,” said Ian Kennedy, CTO and co-founder. “FinScript transforms complex financial models into simple, auditable instructions, allowing teams to work faster and smarter without compromising on rigor or transparency.”
According to the company, even junior analysts using FinScript can evaluate deals up to five times faster than experienced Excel users. The system also reduces the risk of costly errors, an issue that has long plagued finance teams.
“Finance is uniquely positioned to benefit from AI, but spreadsheets are not built for this shift,” said Brooks Gibbins, co-founder and Managing Partner at FinTech Collective. “You can think of Glassbox as the financial modeling equivalent of GitHub for code management or Notion for content creation – bringing 0-1 structure, traceability, and collaboration to complex financial workflows. By staying fully compatible with Excel, Glassbox enables finance teams to harness the power of AI without disrupting their existing processes.”
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The founding team brings deep expertise to the challenge. Harris, who is a Princeton-educated engineer with experience in energy investment banking and derivatives structuring on Wall Street, brings firsthand insight into the inefficiencies of traditional finance workflows. Kennedy, a seasoned engineer and cloud architect with over 15 years of experience, leads technical strategy and development for Glassbox.
“We’re always inspired by founders with deep industry expertise and a personal drive to solve the problems they’ve lived,” explains Michelle McBane, Managing Director at StandUp Ventures. “When Allison shared that she was building the tool she wished had existed during her time in investment banking and that it would have changed her entire career trajectory we knew this was a founder and a vision we had to back.”
Glassbox has been operating in stealth mode for the past 18 months, running private beta programs with select industry leaders. The company is now opening its waitlist to a broader audience, with plans to scale distribution later this year.
“The applications of Glassbox are remarkably broad,” Harris noted. “From investment banking and private equity to hedge funds, FP&A, and insurance, Glassbox is designed to maintain flexibility, making it ideal for a wide range of financial analysis use cases.”
With its innovative approach and sophisticated backers, Glassbox is positioning itself as a key player in the emerging field of AI-enabled financial services. The company’s next-gen spreadsheet platform is poised to transform how financial professionals analyze deals, collaborate, and make decisions all without leaving Excel behind.
Source: GlobeNewswire
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